Images taken by search teams show the wreckage strewn across a dense forest
An advance party of an Indonesian rescue team has reached the site where a Trigana Air plane crashed in the western Papua region on Sunday.
Initial reports from the team say the aircraft was completely destroyed and 38 bodies were found in the wreckage.
It came down in dense forest in a mountainous area, a few kilometres from its original destination of Oksibil.
The plane was carrying 44 adult passengers, five children, and five crew members.
The plane was also said to be carrying about 6.5 billion rupiah ($486,000; £300,000) in cash, which was due to be distributed to poor families in the area.
A rescue team of about a hundred police, military and civilians is due to reach the site in the coming hours.
Media caption54 people were reportedly onboard the flight, which crashed into a mountain in eastern Papua
Bambang Soelistyo, head of Indonesia's search and rescue agency, said the advance party arrived at the site at 09:30 local time (00:30 GMT) on Monday and found the aircraft "completely destroyed".
Mr Soelisyo added that rescuers were also hunting for the plane's flight data recorders, known as black boxes, which should shed light on what caused the accident.
The ATR42-300 twin turboprop plane took off from Sentani airport in Jayapura at 14:21 local time on Sunday, but lost contact with air traffic controllers half an hour later.
Bad weather is believed to have been a possible reason for the crash. A search plane was forced to turn back on Sunday because of dangerous flying conditions.
Oksibil, which is about 280km south of Jayapura, is a remote, mountainous region, which is extremely difficult to navigate.
Trigana Air has had 14 serious incidents since it began operations in 1991, losing 10 aircraft in the process, according to the Aviation Safety Network.
It has been on a European Union blacklist of banned carriers since 2007. All but four of Indonesia's certified airlines are on the list.
Indonesia has suffered two major air disasters in the past year.
Last December, an AirAsia plane crashed in the Java Sea, killing all 192 people on board - and in July a military transport plane crashed in a residential area of Medan, Sumatra, claiming 140 lives.
An advance party of an Indonesian rescue team has reached the site where a Trigana Air plane crashed in the western Papua region on Sunday.
Initial reports from the team say the aircraft was completely destroyed and 38 bodies were found in the wreckage.
It came down in dense forest in a mountainous area, a few kilometres from its original destination of Oksibil.
The plane was carrying 44 adult passengers, five children, and five crew members.
The plane was also said to be carrying about 6.5 billion rupiah ($486,000; £300,000) in cash, which was due to be distributed to poor families in the area.
A rescue team of about a hundred police, military and civilians is due to reach the site in the coming hours.
Media caption54 people were reportedly onboard the flight, which crashed into a mountain in eastern Papua
Bambang Soelistyo, head of Indonesia's search and rescue agency, said the advance party arrived at the site at 09:30 local time (00:30 GMT) on Monday and found the aircraft "completely destroyed".
"The plane has crashed, it is completely destroyed," he told reporters. "Everything was in pieces and part of the plane is burnt."He said rescuers were still looking for survivors at the site but the chances of finding anyone alive were "slim".
Mr Soelisyo added that rescuers were also hunting for the plane's flight data recorders, known as black boxes, which should shed light on what caused the accident.
The ATR42-300 twin turboprop plane took off from Sentani airport in Jayapura at 14:21 local time on Sunday, but lost contact with air traffic controllers half an hour later.
Bad weather is believed to have been a possible reason for the crash. A search plane was forced to turn back on Sunday because of dangerous flying conditions.
Oksibil, which is about 280km south of Jayapura, is a remote, mountainous region, which is extremely difficult to navigate.
Trigana Air has had 14 serious incidents since it began operations in 1991, losing 10 aircraft in the process, according to the Aviation Safety Network.
It has been on a European Union blacklist of banned carriers since 2007. All but four of Indonesia's certified airlines are on the list.
Indonesia has suffered two major air disasters in the past year.
Last December, an AirAsia plane crashed in the Java Sea, killing all 192 people on board - and in July a military transport plane crashed in a residential area of Medan, Sumatra, claiming 140 lives.
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